A Dutch Anti-Islamic Politician with U.S. Backers

Geert Wilders is the leader of the Netherlands' Freedom Party, an anti-Islamic party polling fourth ahead of Wednesday's Dutch election, whose platform includes banning the construction of mosques and stopping all non-western immigration. Reuters' Anthony Deutsch and Mark Hosenball report that the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, headed by Daniel Pipes, funded Wilders' legal defense on hate speech charges and the Los Angeles-based conservative activist David Horowitz (who runs Front Page Magazine) paid Wilders "a good fee" for two speeches when he visited the United States. The foreign funding isn't illegal under Dutch law, Hosenball and Deutsch pointed out, but it helps reveal how the Freedom Party, which declines government funding and therefore keeps its sources of money private, is able to operate. It also shows a possible problem for Wilders, as his party shifts focus from Islam to the European Union. Opposition to the E.U. hasn't had the same traction with voters as his anti-immigrant views, the Associated Press reported last month, and it probably won't elicit many speaking invitations from donors on this side of the Atlantic either.

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